Of Ugly Ducklings, Swans and Geese
by Sirenic Griffin
Summary: “She looked at her sisters and her brothers so different from herself and all she felt was like a monster. She didn’t belong there. So she left.” Modern Retelling of The Ugly Duckling, involving humans, and school, a girls whose different and an artist.
1. Chapter 1

**Of Ugly Ducklings, Swans and Geese. **

Cathryn had always been different from the other kids at the school, all of them who where all thin, with straightened hair done in intricate twists and twirls.

Once she'd tried to be like them but it hadn't worked out and they'd just laughed at her.

She was different from them all with her more human frame, popular in the renaissance and the past but not in the society where having bones that looked like they were about to pop out of skin, and her hair was always wild although she did try and tame it with gel and a hairbrush. And then it went bushy, to her dismay.

Jillian giggled next to her and Cathryn turned to look at what had captured the young artists attention.

They were in Mathematics Class at the moment and were meant to be paying vivid attention to what the teacher was saying but Jillian never had.

"He confuses me," She explained one day and Cathryn had nodded shaking her head. Jillian preferred to do things herself, or work it out from the way the textbook suggested. She didn't like to have things explained verbally, or she did in a manner that was completely different from everyone around her.

She was different too, but not physically like Cathryn was and while they both tried to fit in they did more to stand apart. Jillian couldn't control her outbursts and she had no self control at all and Cathryn was just… different.

"What is it?" Cathryn whispered, and Jillian turned her large doelike brown eyes to gaze at her friend. Grinning she turned the page towards her.

It looked like a farmyard.

There were chooks, that all looked the same although coloured differently.

And white ducks squawking followed by ducklings, and brown ducks off on their own, on the edge of the lake resting.

There were horses and cows, and another assortment of farm animals but it was the lake that drew Cathryn's attention.

On the lake were two other white birds that were alike to the ducks but completely different.

A goose swam, trying to catch up to the elegant swan ahead but the goose tried to look too proud and pretending it wasn't. The only indication that Cathryn had that it was infact moving frantically was the fact that it's legs had motion circles and lines around them. The swan moved far slower with grace and dignity of an old queen.

It was then that Cathryn noticed the words.

Each of the farm animals were labelled with names from her years mates, the popular girls who never seemed to be without a boyfriend and the latest fashion were chooks, and the boys attached roosters, the sporty children were the horses, and those who weren't into doing much and were considered 'nerds' even though they weren't were cows.

The white ducks were the walkers between the two words of intelligence and popularity, and labelled as such and the brown ducks were her friends, outsiders who fit in when the need arose and got on with everyone. Minglers who belonged to no group and so were grouped together.

The name Jillian floated near the swan and Kat smiled for a moment before she realised that that meant the goose trying to keep up was her. But then she saw Jillian's hand moving creating a rope label back onto the goose.

The goose was her.

The goose was Jillian.

Which meant that the swan was…

Her?

Cathryn blinked and Jillian began shading the swan to make sure it stood out in the picture. It was the focus of the picture. That swan and even the goose paled in comparison.

She looked at Jillian's face and touched her arm gently, knowing the right way to talk to the eccentric girl.

"That's not true," She said and Jillian bit her lip, her face as expressive as always.

"Yeah, it is Cat. You just don't see it. I'm always going to be trying to catch up to you." Cathryn gave her a weird look.

"That's why everyone is so mean and crappy. They are jealous." Cathryn snorted.

"Of what, may I ask Lady Jill?" Jillian smiled sadly.

"The swan just inside, you're an honestly nice person and people are attracted to that." Cathryn shook her head.

"What about you Jill, why are you the goose?" Jillian smiled, her eyes brightening.

"Because believe it or not, I'm jealous of your grace. I'm bumbling, I can never say what I want to say and when people call me a freak I cry. I don't have your strength and without you I bet I wouldn't even have the people we have." Cat smiled and the bell rang, and Jillian left quickly and Cat looked around as people came up to talk to her.

She could see Jillian disappearing around one of the corners and grinned at the people around her.

A swan, huh? Better start acting like one.

"Hey, I'll be back in a sec, Sez can you look after my books?" Sarah nodded, and Cat was reminded of the duck and she giggled as she looked at the rest of the brown ducks; all really so different inside and out from herself that she had felt like a monster who didn't belong and she left them to be ducks.

She had to find the goose, because at the end of the day, that's all they were.

Just birds.

Or people who were just that little bit different from everybody else.

Belatedly she remembered the story of the Ugly Duckling, and smiled wondering just what exactly the folk tellers would make of the goose who told the swan to look in the mirror.

**+ fin + **


	2. Chapter 2

**Goose Pretending to be a Swan. **

Nobody ever talked to Jillian, no she corrected herself firmly, lots of people talked to Jillian, they talked and laughed and heard her. They heard her in drama stutter out sentences because she got nervous in the large rooms that dwarfed her late figure. It was a family trait, her mother said, to hit the first growth spurt at thirteen, and then another one when she finished high school.

So, while she was not short she was slight, and she was not tall. Her mother had once told her that a wind could pick her up and throw her to the sky and her body would float there, flying gracefully and Jillian, as a naïve three year old, had loved that simple idea. Flying gracefully when nothing she ever did was graceful for the accident prone girl.

Then she realised that meant flying. And the thought of truly flying scared her.

Her classmates said she was brave, and they envied her for the fact that she could 'truly be herself' when she spoke her mind, she held nothing back and always spoke the truth. Jillian hated that about herself also. She often wondered if, maybe if, she had the ability to keep her mouth shut she could be like Cathryn the swan.

But she couldn't.

No matter how hard she tried in English, History, Science (although that one was easier because she had too pay twice as much attention then every other subject because what he was explaining they wouldn't go over in homework like mathematics), Computer (although the class rarely talked), Religion or Social Studies it was all the same.

She spoke random comments that sometimes made sense but often didn't when they poured out of her mouth.

Everyone heard the comments and smiled.

But they didn't listen just like they didn't really talk to her.

Because Jillian was different.

Jillian was creative.

Jillian was eccentric.

Oneday Jillian would be something extraordinary.

But Jillian didn't see that happening. She saw herself trying hard and failing, just like the goose in her picture in maths, failing to keep up with the perfect bird: the swan.

And Jillian was beginning to accept something else.

She would never be a swan. She just wasn't. She was a goose, a loud, hissing, honking goose all noise and no beauty.

She stared down at her knee with it's base bruised, the next layer burnt and the top layer festering while it fought bacteria, she looked at her grazed palms and swollen jarred fingers, at the bruising graze on her bicep and the burn on her elbow.

Jillian was definitely not a swan.

She was not graceful at all.

---

"Excuse me!" Cathryn puffed her bushy hair falling into her eyes and the Year Twelve student raised an eyebrow at the much younger girl and Cathryn felt herself colouring slightly. She wasn't supposed to be in the senior block, which was reserved for year eleven and twelve. The Year Tenner's had their own block. And the boy definitely belonged to the upper grade. He towered over her, an achievement to say the least because Cathryn was not a short girl.

"Excuse me?" He said mockingly and Cathryn blushed. He was imitating her with a cruel-like smirk. His darker colouring stood out in a school of Anglo-Saxon children. In a way he was like Jillian. Only in a way. Jillian had pale olive skin and dark hair (that many students also had but Cathryn suspected most them dyed their hair), dark eyes and a very different nose. The boy was of Mediterranean but that was all Cat could tell; she lack the skill and knowledge to tell if he was Italian, Greek or Spanish or any of those countries. He had the tanned skin, the dark hair and eyes and that was all Cathryn could tell.

"I'm looking for another girl. Her name's Jillian and she came this way, have you seen her?" The boy looked at her with piercing eyes, hazel coloured with a lot of gold streaked through them.

"Does she have dark hair?" Cathryn nodded.

"About this tall." He indicated a place four inches below the top of Cat's head.

"Large dark eyes." Cat nodded and the boy shrugged.

"Nah, haven't see her." Cat glared and he turned the shrug into a stretch and pointed into the bush which surrounded the Catholic High School.

"She ran in there." Cat nodded, thanking him and took off into the bush herself. His hand snaked out, stopping her.

"Where do you think your going shrimp?" Cat glared.

"To get Jillian back." As if it were obvious.

"You can't go in there." She stated firmly and she glared back at him and he gritted his teeth.

"Why not?" She asked, to be infuriating.

"Because, as school leader I'd have to accompany you. Because it's dangerous for a young girl to go out into the bush," Cat glowered and remembered a small sketch that Jill had done the second day back at school. Cathryn had missed the first.

"Jill said you're a spirit captain. It's the leftover job." The boy glared.

"And would this Jill know who and what I am." Cathryn shrugged, Jill always knew.

"She drew you." The boys eyesbrows rose.

"She drew me?" He asked slightly sceptical and Cathryn nodded firmly and decided to ignore the parrot and continue into the unknown unsafe lands which were the bush. The boy glared at her back and sighed following after her diligently.

"My name is Cathryn." She said slowly and the boy sighed.

"I hate the name Cathryn." She looked back at him, annoyed and he began to explain.

"Cathryn, comes from Katherine, comes from Aikaterine, could come from Hekateros which means 'each of two', it could come from Hecate, the goddess of the black moon and witchcraft and featured in the Shakespearean play MacBeth, could come from Aikia,

'torture' or the Coptic 'my consecration of your name.'" She blinked.

"er… from what I know it means pure." And he shook his head.

"And that's why I hate it. The Romans think it comes from katharos 'pure'. How can a simply name mean both pure and torture?" She glowered, if it that reply came from any other guy in any other circumstance she would think it was a lame pick-up line.

"I'm Angelo." She didn't need to know greek or name meanings to know what that name meant.

"Angel." He rolled his eyes mockingly.

"Come from Angelos, meaning 'messenger'." She let out a cry of frustration.

"How do you know so much?" And he grinned wolfishly. She remembered reading somewhere that 90 Percent of a communication was body language... of was it 70?

"Because I'm interested. Do you have any idea where your friend Jillian would've gone." Cathryn blinked and looked around the area and at the dense bush that discouraged people simply walking off and not going to class but it was lunchtime now. And she hadn't found Jillian in the break before Pastoral Care and role call, and she had the next class: Advanced English with the girl, or in Jillian's case, without the girl.

Soon Sarah would grow tired of waiting with her books and either leave them on the desk or put them in her school bag. She pointed forward and proclaimed that way.

Angelo looked at her, slightly sceptical but followed her lead, glancing down at his watch.

"Do you need to be somewhere else?" She eventually asked and he looked up in surprise.

"No, just making sure we have plenty of time. Late is not something I enjoy being." Cat nodded and then glanced back up at him. Something occurring to her.

"You followed me in here? Why didn't you follow Jill?" He looked slightly bemused.

"You talked to me, meaning it put me in the situation and she seemed to know her way around." He said slowly and Cat understood that. Jillian _always _knew her way around. Even if she was horribly lost. And he did seem the person who wouldn't be involved unless he had to.

"How did you become a leader?" She asked confused and he shrugged.

"No idea, or well I do my _loving friend _Isabella made me." She nodded and they continued for a while.

"What does Jillian mean?" She asked eventually and he smirked.

"Female form of Julian, which comes from Julius, a roman family name, it could come from the Greek ioulos, downy-bearded or from the roman form of the King of the Gods Jupiter, it claims relation to Julus, son of Aeneas."

"Who is…?"

"Pay more attention in history." She scowled.

---

AN:// This was meant to be a oneshot and then I got Celestial Starlights Review (which shows how important and influential a single review can be... ) and I began thinking of what I could do to continue the story. Aargh! So this will continue, possibly... for a while at least while I still get inspiring reviews.


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